Last year Simone (Lisa Simone Kelly), the daughter of singer Nina Simone paid homage to her iconic mother on Mother's Day with the re-launch of NinaSimone.com. Serving as the executor of her mother's estate, Simone plans to feature exclusive content including unreleased songs, video performances, a 24-7 Internet radio station, interviews and guest commentary, among other things. "As her only child, I have a unique vision compared to anyone else walking this earth," she told us earlier this year. "So a lot of what we're bringing to the site is from my perspective."
"They say 'the more things change, the more they stay the same.' Considering I am walking so closely in my mother's footsteps, that adage certainly applies, yet the subtle differences between Mommy's time and mine are vast," she added on the newly revamped site. "The best of her lives on in me and when I pass on, the best of us will live on in my little girl as she carries on the Legacy Simone."
April 21 marks 9 years since the singer-songwriter passed away from breast cancer at the age 70. To commemorate Simone’s legacy the site will feature the seventh installment in its celebrity blog series from American poet, Sonia Sanchez, who presented a special poem during one of two official memorial services in honor of her beloved friend. Check out an excerpt of Sanchez's poem below.
A Praise Poem for Nina Simone…
How to honor a woman
whose mouth was a blue
sash of rain, raining
convocations of flesh;
How to make you hear her
voice downpouring yellow
butterflies;
How to summon those fastidious
hands, playing without
eyes or tongues,
those hands that got up
in the nite, followed voices
that waited in the dark for songs
being sung from chandeliers?Don’t ya know fantastic
rumors of chords abound
in her fingernails?…I guess I will lift up
My eyes to this extraordinary
Musician. Poet. Artist,
tasting the sea with her
hands.
Head over to the site on April 11 to view Sonia Sanchez's poem in its entirety.
